


now with your fierce tears

by Rowantreeisme



Series: Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Tony Stark, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not Canon Compliant, Outer Space, Presumed Dead, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rowantreeisme/pseuds/Rowantreeisme
Summary: Whumptober day 2: ExplosionBolidenounAn extremely bright meteor, especially one that explodes in the atmosphere.





	now with your fierce tears

**Author's Note:**

> this is a star!tony fic, enjoy. mind the tags.  
title from do not go gentle into that good night

For a moment, there’s nothing but the sounds of battle and explosions, tinny through the speakers, a flare of something from the depths of the portal, something so small and dim he can’t pick it out. 

Then  _ light _ , bright, and blinding, making the inside of that portal look like a second sun, so bright that the screen flickers. For a moment, that’s  _ all _ there is, the bright. He hadn’t realized— 

“I have to close it.” Romanoff says, and there’s something in her voice that makes the hair on the back of Rhodey’s neck stand up.. “I’m closing it.”

“You can’t,” Rogers shouts, and Rhodey silently echoes the sentiment, even as he can’t take his eyes off the screen, even as he’s doing the math in his head for just how  _ quickly _ a blast like that can travel, “Stark—”

“He’s already dead and if I don’t close this thing we will be too,” Romanoff snaps. 

“Do it.” Rogers says, voice quiet.

Through the portal, the light grows brighter, and brighter. Even on-screen, it hurts to look at but he doesn’t even blink because it feels like looking away for even a moment would mean something that he’s not prepared to say. 

And then the portal snaps closed, and the screen goes dark. 

\---

There’s a briefing.

There’s something about it, about sitting in a room with people who were there when you didn’t even know that something was happening. Sitting in a room with all the people who saw your best friend die.

Tony’s dead. He knows that. JARVIS confirmed it for him, that Tony went up and never came down, and right now he trusts JARVIS more than anyone else here.

Especially because Romanoff and Fury are lying to him. 

“What we think happened,” Romanoff says, she was closest, she was  _ there _ , and for all Rhodey can tell she’s absolutely sincere and he knows that  _ she is lying _ , “Is that either Stark forced the arc reactor in the iron man suit to explode, or that the reaction from the warhead forced it into a catastrophic failure. Either way, the invading forces stopped fighting when the first sign of the explosion was detected. Rhodes, do you have anything to add?”

Rhodey shakes his head. She’s lying, and she has to know that he knows she is. He’s the second—

He’s the leading expert on both the suit and the arc reactor technology. 

Fury nods. “Dismissed,” He snaps, and it takes a moment for everyone to realize that— 

This is it. It’s over. All that’s left now is cleanup.

“Romanoff,” He says, and she stops at the sound of his voice, shoulders sagging imperceptibly. “What actually happened up there?”

“You were in the debrief, same as me—”

“ _ No, _ ” Rhodey snaps, furious and greiving and  _ exausted _ , “No, you’re going to stop fucking lying becuase we  _ both _ know that whatever the hell happened up there was  _ not _ the reactor, and it wasn’t the warhead, and it wasn’t been the chitauri becuase they wouldn’t have taken out their entire goddamn invading force, so I’m going to ask agian,  _ what the hell was that?” _

Romanoff looks at him, measuring him against something that he doesn’t care about because Tony is  _ dead _ and he wasn’t even there when it  _ happened _ . “Tony showed you his file.” She says, and it’s not a question.

Rhodey wants to shake her, because  _ that is not an answer _ . “Yes.” He says, shortly, Oh, he remembers that joke of a file, remembers how absolutely furious he was with SHIELD and Romanoff after reading it for the first time, remembers that he wondered just how they could’ve gotten it so wrong before Tony had laughed and told him what it  _ actually _ meant. 

Romanoff makes a weird face, something that’s not really amusement. “Of course he did.” She says, pauses, and then turns around and starts walking deeper into the building. “There’s something you need to see.” 

Rhodey follows her. He has to follow her, because this is something that might explain,  _ finally _ , the reason Tony’s dead, and he can’t pass that up. He can’t.

He searched for three months before and he’ll search for as long as it takes to understand now. 

The walk is quite aside from the sound of their shoes on the floor. There’s some people, all in uniform, bustling around the hallways but the pair of them are never spared a second glance. 

Grief hasn’t hit him quiet yet, he knows. He’s not in shock — not  _ really _ , he knows what shock feels like, and this isn’t it — but he’s definitely in denial. More than half of him is screaming  _ there’s no body, he could be alive _ and the other part is telling him that  _ something happened up there that released more energy than a nuclear bomb, the suit is not space-worthy, he is dead _ and he’s not really listening to either. 

_ Maybe he’s still alive, _ he thinks _ , maybe he’s still alive but he’s not going to be for long because he’s stranded in space with no oxygen aside from what can fit inside the suit and no water and no food and no power. _

It’s a variation of what he thought those years ago, pressing hard on the wounds of his soldiers long after the sand had swallowed all their blood, waiting for a rescue that no one was sure was coming, that everyone knew would be too late.  _ Maybe he’s alive, _ he’d thought then, had  _ hoped _ then, even as he’d known without a doubt that being alive might be worse than being dead. 

There’s always a point where hope turns to fear. 

Romanoff leads him to a room — and he thinks that he might hate her, for making the choice that he’s not sure he could’ve made, for making the right choice, for saving millions of people from certain death — and the door looks exactly the same as the dozens of other doors they’ve passed. 

There’s no keypad, no electronic lock, though. Instead, Romanoff takes a key — a physical key — out from somewhere in her uniform and fits it into the lock. There’s a clunking noise that’s disproportionate to the size of the key and of the door, and the door swings open, lights going on in sequence, on, and on, and on into the room. 

It’s a big room and it looks… almost exactly like the deeper stacks in the Hayden library back in college, complete with huge wheels on the shelves so they can all stack inwards. Space-saving. 

Romanoff seems to know exactly where to go, twists open a path between the shelves and walks down until she hits the drawer she wants. The label on the front reads  _ 19-20-1-18-11. _ It needs another key, and despite himself he’s curious at the system. He’d presumed that SHIELD was fairly electronic base, but this, racks and racks and  _ racks _ of drawers that look to be full of folders, makes him rethink that. Romanoff seems to catch on to what he’s thinking, and smirks at him, a little. “Do you really think that we  _ wouldn’t _ prepare for hackers like Tony?” She asks, “We’ve barely digitized anything. It’s slow, but at least it’s secure.”

“Smart.” Rhodey says. The mention of Tony doesn’t ache as much as it should. As it will, soon enough. 

Romanoff digs something out of the drawer, and Rhodey has to brace against the heaft of the paper, and there’s still another whole stack that Romanoff pulls out before she shuts and locks the drawer again. The folder he’s holding — a massive sheaf of paper bound in a ring binder — reads  _ 191005 Stark. Anthony Edward, No. 1  _ on the front, and—

Rhodey doesn’t really want to know what’s going to be in this. What could  _ possibly _ be in this file that could explain what happened today. 

Romanoff either doesn’t notice his turmoil, or is ignoring it — Rhodey would bet on the latter any day — and starts walking further into the room. There’s a set of tables and chairs at the far end, and she drops her folder, labeled almost the same as the one Rhodey’s carrying except for the  _ No. 2 _ appending the number and name, onto the table. 

Rhodey sets his down gently. Like it’s a thing that needs gentleness. 

(There’s no body. He thinks that maybe this, someone else’s record of Tony’s entire life laid bare on a table in the depths of SHIELD, might be the closest he’s going to come to lowering a body into a grave.)

Romanoff nods at the folder. “This is his real file.” She says, “Open it.”

Rhodey still doesn’t really want to open it. He doesn’t want to see his friend’s life laid out in precise, unemotional terms. He was furious when he thought he knew what these people thought of him, he doesn’t want to know the truth.

He flips open the cover of the binder anyways. 

The first page starts… exactly where he expects it to start, honestly. May 29th, 1970. Figures, SHIELD would have their eyes on him from the day he was born. There’s a paragraph about the birth, about what he’s been named, date and times and that kind of thing, and then—

“This is a starmap.” Rhodey says, absolutely baffled, blinking down at the picture — and it’s clear that it was added later, stuck into the file with scotch-tape — and Rhodey— Rhodey has no goddamn  _ clue _ what’s going on. “Why is there a starmap here?”

Natasha  _ looks _ at him, long and hard. “So you didn’t know.” She says. “We’d thought so, but—”

_ “What the hell are you talking about?” _ Rhodey snaps, “What could I have  _ possibly _ known that would make today make  _ any _ goddamn sense? What’s in this  _ goddamn  _ file, Romanoff?”

Natasha meets his eyes, and says, “Tony wasn’t completely human. That’s why that star chart is in there. Did you know that approximately 20 stars were all born at  _ exactly _ the same time Tony was? Their light reached us later, but… that’s what got us looking. That, and the solar storm.” She gestured for him to flip the page, and… there it is, a graph of rising and falling activity in the sun, the peaks exactly 8 minutes out of sync with the waves of contractions listen on Maria Stark’s chart. 

Rhodey feels faint. He pinches himself, still staring down at the file. He’s dreaming. He has to be dreaming. This can’t— Tony can’t have been some sort of— god, and he can’t even find the word for what he’s thinking. “Did— did he know.” He asks, voice rough, because— yeah, that’s the part that’s gonna hurt most. 

If Tony knew, if Tony didn’t tell him, if Tony was some sort of goddamn space monster and never even mentioned it when Rhodey talked about being an astronaut, about flying. It  _ hurts _ , thinking about this being kept a secret, when Tony has always been so open with Rhodey. It hurts that SHIELD knew when he didn’t. 

(Tony had come out to him first, through some joke that could easily be brushed off but his eyes and body language were wary, had told him about Howard and how he was treated in his home, had told him about his anxiety and his issues and had brought him to meet the Jarvises and Rhodey had always treasured those moments when Tony has been open with him, had trusted him, had done damn near everything he could to show that he was worth trusting.)

((He messed up sometimes, he knew he did, pushed too hard or too fast and he was never going to forget the betrayal in Tony’s eyes when Rhodey had called the cops on Ty that one time, would never forget Tony’s avoidance the weeks after, would never forget how much he hated when Tony withdrew because of something Rhodey did to try and help him.))

“We’re pretty sure he didn’t, no.” Natasha says, and the hot feeling in his chest abates, a little bit. Tony didn’t know. He couldn’t have told him because  _ he didn’t know.  _ That doesn’t make SHIELD knowing feel  _ ok _ , but. It helps. 

It makes him feel guilty as hell, feeling  _ good _ that his friend didn’t know this huge, dangerous part of himself, but. It’s not like it can hurt anyone anymore. 

“Whatever his abilities, there’s lots of evidence that they were almost entirely subconscious. We still don’t know the true extent of what he could do, but what we saw today… that’s part of it.” Natasha finishes. “The most likely theory is that it was caused, at least in part, by Howard’s involvement with the tesseract, but other than that—”

“You don’t know.” Rhodey finishes for her. “You have enough evidence to know that this is real, but you don’t know how, or why, or what. That’s— That’s  _ great. _ ” Rhodey says, wants to put his head in his hands, wants to close his eyes for just a second, even knowing that if he does he’ll have to think about what this means, and— 

It’s selfish, but he doesn’t want to know that this is real, yet. 

The file’s still open on the table, and Rhodey hesitates before reaching out to it, stops just before he turns the page, runs his fingers along the print-out of the starmap instead. 

This star, that had been born on the same day that Tony had., been seen nearly a decade later. Rhodey wondered if in another decade, that star would disappear from the sky completely. He wondered if he’d been watching when that happened, watching like he hadn’t been when Tony had—

“You can look through it, if you want.” Natasha told him, standing up from the table. “I’ll give you some time alone. Put them back in the drawer when you’re done — it’ll lock by itself.”

“Wait,” Rhodey says, before Natasha can leave entirely, “If he was— could he still be alive?”

Natasha hesitates. Long enough that Rhodey can feel hope grow in his chest, and then— “Stars can still die, Rhodes. Don’t hope for something that’s not going to happen.”

And then she’s gone, and Rhodey’s alone.

\---

Natasha’s waiting outside the door when Rhodey leaves, and… they don’t talk about it. Rhodey didn’t read the folder, and he’s sure Natasha knows that. He couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to flip the page, didn’t want to see what SHIELD thought of Tony. He doesn’t want to betray Tony’s trust like that, even if he’s dead. Natasha escorts him out of SHIELD, and Pepper’s there, waiting at the door. 

Her eyes are red, but that’s the only sign that she’s affected at all. Her jacket and skirt aren’t rumpled at all, and her hair is tied back tightly, and as soon as she seese Rhodey her jaw goes tight, trying to hold back the emotions. 

Rhodey will tell her what Natasha revealed to him later, when they’re somewhere without prying eyes, listening ears. He’ll tell her.

Pepper exchanges a nod with Natasha, simple, and knowing, and Pepper’s exactly as composed as she needs to be for the cameras until the two of them climb into the back of the car, and then the tears start to flow. 

Pepper’s a quiet crier. Rhodey knows this, he’s seen it before, too many goddamn times. She’s quiet, and it’s not obvious — her concealer is hiding the splotchy redness of her face, and the only things that Rhodey can hear are quiet, muffled hiccups — but Rhodey  _ knows _ her. He knows, god, he  _ knows _ . 

He  _ knows,  _ but he doesn’t cry. It’s not real yet. The grief hasn’t properly set in, so he knows but he doesn’t  _ feel _ . 

Rhodey holds Pepper in the back of the car as she cries and tries not to think about just how he knows he’ll feel when the truth finally hits him, and thinks about what he’s learned. 

They get back to the tower, and they get back to work.

\---

“His name is Thanos.” Carol says, standing over the table in what everyone’s been calling the war room. Carol Danvers — and  _ that _ had been a shock and a half, armoring up as something landed on the Tower’s helipad and going out to defend/negotiate and seeing a woman that Rhodey had thought  _ dead _ for nearly two decades — had basically fallen out of the sky, a couple hours ago, and now Rhodey and the Avengers were desperately trying to plan for this new, somehow more horrifying, threat. “He’s trying to kill half the universe.” 

She puts her hand flat on the table, and the thing lights up — it’s a touch-screen, and seems to be— yeah, it’s interfacing with her body armor. Rhodey feels a twinge as he thinks about just how  _ exited _ Tony would’ve been, for all of this, to see Carol again and to figure out how her body armor works, suppresses it — and starts playing a video, clearly taken from a bodycam somewhere on Carol’s suit. 

It’s from Carol’s point of view, dizzying, with how fast she moves, rocketing towards a ship and punching  _ through _ it, flashes of the same insect-like aliens that had been part of the battle of new york being tossed around by explosive decompression. It looks  _ easy _ , for her, blasting out dozens of the aliens at a time, and then. 

Something that’s clearly an alien, if a different type than the Chitauri — huge, and  _ purple _ , wearing heavy, shiny armor and wielding the biggest sword Rhodey’s ever seen — steps into the room. 

The ship starts moving — turning towards the star in this system, a huge, horrible humming starting up somewhere deep inside the ship — and Carol attacks. 

She’s demonstrated her abilities — carefully, and  _ outside _ — so Rhodey knows she’s powerful. Powerful, and determined enough that she can  _ use _ that power. 

And this fight is clearly taking her all. Thanos is quick — quicker than Rhodey would’ve expected, given his size — and wields the double-bladed sword with a kind of ferociousness Rhodey would expect from a wild animal. Durable, too, considering that Carol punctured the hull and that her blasts seem to be doing about fuck-all to him, even as she retreats, backing off, and that doesn’t make sense, becuase she was holding her own a second ago, and—

Three blasts straight down, and the image is drowned in a burst of white light and a deep rumbling that’s so loud that it feels like the speakers are going to give out. Rhodey nods at Carol, one soldier to another, in deference to her strategy. 

A blade comes screaming out of nowhere, the camera still compensating for the brightness, and the scene tumbles backwards before Carol manages to stabilize herself on-screen. 

The ship’s gone — the only parts left are scraps of half-melted metal that max out at the size of a kitchen chair — but Thanos is still floating in the wreckage, where he had clearly just hit Carol like a baseball, and he’s— 

Great, he has a jetpack. Him and Carol collide, again, as more ships in the background begin to power-up, glowing brighter, and brighter, as Thanos blocks Carol’s attempts to get past him, takes any shots she takes to his body so that they can’t hit his ships. They’re perfectly evenly matched, and Rhodey feels a chill go down his spine. 

If Carol can’t take this asshole—

Rhodey jerks in his seat, the armor jerking around him, as a flash of  _ something _ comes out of nowhere and rips through all three of Thanos’s remaining ships. Thanos notices, and his mouth opens in a snarl that doesn’t go anywhere — no sound in space, idiot — and Carol uses his distraction to blast him backwards, toward the wreckage of his own fleet. 

The shining bolt of… Rhodey can’t even tell what it  _ is _ , it’s so bright that it washes out the entire screen, comes back into frame, and Thanos disappears in the smear of white that makes it up. “What the hell is that,” Rhodey asks, staring at the screen as the ball of white light and Thanos start duking it out in the distance. 

“I don’t know.” Carol says, “Started showing up a couple years ago. It’s joined up a couple times, when i’m fighting Thanos. Won’t respond to my hails,” — as Carol says this, her voice comes over the recording doing just that, asking the unknown entity to identify itself — “And it doesn’t travel in any ship that I can see. The guardians tried to run a scan on it, once, and Rocket tells me that the readings it gives off are identical to a star, So…” She shrugs, points back at the screen, “It’s been doing a damn good job preventing Thanos from doing whatever he wants, though. At least—”

The ball of light goes shooting backwards,  _ splits _ , after a moment, two pieces of thee same whole falling away from the battle is Carol takes its place.

“Yeah.” Carol says. as the two pieces of the thing dim in the background as she tries to beat the shit out of Thanos. “It can only last so long. We’ve been calling it Bolide, just to make things easier.”

“...Did Thanos just kill it?” Steve asks, from Rhodey’s right, and Rhodey knows the tone in his voice. 

Carol tips her head. “I don’t think it  _ can _ be killed. Just watch,” She says. Thanos hits Carol backwards again, far enough that when a ship appears out of a gate and scoops him up, she’s too far away to get to him before the ship jumps away. “Fuck,” Carol says over the recording, and Rhodey quietly echoes the sentiment as Carol moves towards the peices of Bolide.

It’s clearly humanoid, now that it’s not glowing bright enough to wash out half the screen, which… Rhodey hadn’t been expecting. There’s a pair of legs, and a torso. Both still separate from each other, since Thanos had— 

Yeah. Bolide starts glowing again as Carol gets nearer, the two pieces that had drifted apart before seemingly dragged back together, and by the time Carol’s close enough that she might be able to see it’s features it’s glowing too bright to make out any details aside from two arms, two legs, and a head. 

There’s two spots in what Rhodey assumes in it’s face that are brighter than the rest, but soon the difference becomes negligible as it gets brighter and brighter, the same blinding white as before. 

It reminds him, to a T, of what he’d seen on the footage from the battle of New York all those years ago. The same brightness. 

Rhodey pushes the feeling down just as Bolide flys off, disappearing into the distance at a speed that frankly should not be possible. “FTL-capable?” He asks, mostly only to fill the silence. 

“Seems so, and we haven’t seen it use jump-points.” Carol answers, takes her hand back off the table. The screen, abruptly, goes dead, and all of the avengers, who had been leaning forwards to watch, sit back up straight almost in unison. He thinks that Tony could’ve fit here, if he’d given it the chance. If he’d had the time to give it a chance. Rhodey’s thought that a lot, these past couple years. These could’ve been Tony’s  _ people _ , Rhodey knows. Sometimes Clint, or Natasha, or even  _ Steve _ makes a joke and Rhodey can’t help the pang at knowing that it’s exactly the sense of humor that Tony would’ve loved. 

He knows that this is a thing that Tony could’ve thrown himself into whole-heartedly, and he knows that these people would’ve had his back, and sometimes, it hurts how much he hates having taken that place from him. “‘Least it’s on our side,” Clint says, and well, Rhodey has to give it that. Stupid-powerful entity with the makeup of a star who  _ apparenlty _ can’t die? Yeah, at least it seems to be largely non-hostile to everyone  _ but _ Thanos. 

“Alright.” Rhodey says, looks around at the assembled team. “Time to make a plan.” 

\---

Thanos is coming. They all know that, by now — that’s why Carol’s here, after all, she’d learned that Earth was the home of two infinity stones, the two least defended, and had showed up as soon as she could’ve — but not one of them really knows what to  _ do _ about it, aside from renew their attempts to find the Scepter and figure out where the hell the time-stone even  _ is _ . The hope is that they find the stones, and then use them to stop Thanos. Even two of the stones, apparently, would be enough to stop Thanos if used in concert. 

If he hasn’t already collected some himself. 

They’re coming off another Hydra raid when the proximity alarms start sounding. Rhodey, who  _ had _ been just about to take a shower, wash off the gross feeling that comes from being anywhere near anything Hydra’s touched, groans and spins around to get back into the suit. “What’ve we got, JARVIS?” 

“A small, high-velocity object has just entered the solar-system. Preliminary scans indicate that it is not of natural origin.” 

“So, it’s a ship.” Rhodey says, “Trajectory?”

“Unless it is planning on making any sudden course-corrections,” JARVIS says, voice full of that dry humor Rhodey’s always been amazed at, “It is heading to earth.” 

“Figured.” Rhodey say, lets the suit fold around him, and, because it’s quicker, get JARVIS to open both this window and the one in the war-room, three floors down, hops out and flies in through the window. Natasha’s already in the room, sitting with her feet up on the table, but she kicks them off with a shit-eating grin when Rhodey steps in, faceplate open so he can give her a Look. 

Steve’s in next, still tugging his boots on, cowl down, then Carol, who also floats in through the window — she must’ve seen Rhodey do the same thing, but she’s still in her civvies, Rhodey  _ wished _ he knew how she didn’t burn through her clothes — then Bruce, Clint, and Thor, basically at the same time. Thor’s in his Armor, Bruce is still only wearing the pair of sweatpants he got dressed in after letting the hulk out to have some fun, and Clint…

Clint is wearing pajama pants, and nothing else. 

“Gimme a goddamn break,” Clint says, seeing Rhodey staring at him, “Didn’t  _ exactly _ give me a lot of time to get dressed.”

Rhodey nods in acknowledgment — one way or another, this thing isn’t going  _ quite _ fast enough that Clint won’t be able to get his uniform on — and then they’re in business mode. Rhodey looks up — that’s not a habit he ever managed to break, no matter how many times Tony told him that his AI did  _ not _ live in the ceiling — and says, “Tell us what we know, J.”

“Nothing significant.” JARVIS says, “The object is moving too fast, and is too small and far away for the satellites to get any useful scans. It  _ does _ seem to be moving significantly above light-speed, however, and by tracking it’s trajectory, the satellites have managed to collect a few images that may be useful.” 

Rhodey waves his hand. “Let’s see, then.” He says, and the JARVIS puts the image up on the screen. 

There’s quiet, for a moment. 

“Hell, that’s Bolide.” Steve says, “It’s gotta be. Too small to be a ship, anyways— right?”

He looks at Carol, the resident expert on all things space, who nods. “Unless someone’s got tech that the Kree didn’t know about.” She agrees, “Which i’ll admit, that would be  _ hilarious _ , but it’s not likely. And—”

“No jump point.” Rhodey finishes, shares a glance with Carol. “We would have noticed if Thanos showed up, right?”

“We’ve got tech looking for a jump-point opening,” Carol agreed, “And Thanos doesn’t tend to be subtle.”

Thor props an elbow on the table, staring down at the picture, barely anything but a blurry streak of light. “Then we must ask ourselves, why would the falling star have journeyed to Midgaurd so soon?” 

Rhodey looks at the picture, blinks and looks away. “We’re gonna find out.” He says, tone grim, and stands from the table. “JARVIS, ETA?”

“Approximately two hours, if the velocity stays constant.” JARVIS says, and Rhodey nods. 

“Take an hour, make sure you’re ready to go by then..” Steve says, also standing, “JARVIS, tell us when we know where our friend Bolide’s gonna make landfall, ok?” 

“Yes, Captain.” JARVIS responds, and a timer pops up on the table. Two hours and twelve minutes. 

Maybe Rhodey’s gonna get that shower after all. 

\---

An hour and a half later — and Rhodey  _ does _ get his shower, and a thermos of coffee, and he’s almost feeling like a  _ person _ again — and they’re all sitting in the ‘jet, landed and cloaked and settled behind a rocky outcropping in a desert in Nevada somewhere. 

JARVIS’s predicted that Bolide’s gonna land here in just under half an hour, considering that its course hasn’t changed at all since it was spotted. Ridiculously powerful and  _ extremely _ accurate, check. 

Rhodey has to wonder why, though. Why this abandoned stretch of nowhere, why this patch of dunes in Nevada bordered by low, scrubb-covered mountains. He can’t help but remember the last time he was in a place like this. 

All of them are here, even though Rhodey and Carol are the only ones making first contact. They don’t know how hostile this thing is, and while Carol could almost certainly take it, Rhodey would feel… better, if he was there for backup. Even if Bolide could almost certainly melt the armor and him inside it without a second thought. 

That, and the fact that Carol isn’t exactly the most diplomatic person that Rhodey knows, and he wants there to be at least the  _ possibility _ of a level-headed conversation. 

The sun’s long set, by now, and Rhodey can see the stars coming out with full-force. They’re dazzling, here, the milky way a slash of lightness above their heads. 

The moon’s barely a sliver, and Rhodey  _ knows _ that they won’t need JARVIS to tell them when Bolide starts to break through the atmosphere — they’ll  _ see _ it. 

Of course, JARVIS is still giving them updates about how much longer it’ll be — the SI satellites don’t have a fast enough rotational speed to actually track the damn thing, so JARVIS’s been predicting Bolide’s path and taking pictures of it at the exact moment it crosses, like aiming a shot at a moving target. 

Rhodey would be impressed if he weren’t so stressed. 

...Well, more impressed, anyways. He can’t help how proud he is of JARVIS, how much he’s grown, how well he’s adjusted to Tony’s death. Rhodey’s sure that there’s things that JARVIS isn’t telling him, is keeping at least some of his grief all packaged up like Rhodey himself is doing, but, well. 

He wouldn’t be Tony’s kid if he didn’t keep  _ some _ things close to his chest. 

And, well, JARVIS is very much his father’s son. 

“Tony would be proud of you, you know,” Rhodey says, before he can stop himself. The faceplate’s down, and he made sure his comms weren’t broadcasting. JARVIS is the only one who gets to hear this. 

JARVIS is silent, for a moment. “Thank you.” He says, “It… means more to me than you know, that you would think that.” He says, and there’s more emotion in his voice than Rhodey’s heard in a long, long time. He didn’t— he hadn’t realized that JARVIS had become so flat, in the years since, until now, hearing his voice full of a kind of aching pride. 

“Then I’m glad I said it.” Rhodey tells him, blinks a couple times, clearing his vision. “I’m glad. Thank you, for… staying, I guess. After Tony, I wondered if you wouldn’t just… leave, since there was nothing much keeping you here.”

“Colonal,” JARVIS says, “That is patently untrue. I stayed for you, and for Ms Potts, and for You, Butterfingers, and Dummy. I stayed for this team, that you have built. You are the closest thing to a godfather that I have. I would not abandon you for anything.” 

Rhodey blinks, remembers that he can’t wipe his eyes while he’s in the armor in just the nick of time. “Well, then.” He says, voice breaking in the middle. “You didn’t have to make me  _ cry _ , J.” 

He can hear the smile in JARVIS’s voice when he responds to that. “I believe the proper response to that, is, as Sir would say,  _ you started it _ .” 

Rhodey snorts, and Steve turns his head to stare at him. Rhodey waves him off, and Steve goes back to staring out the window at the desert. “Fuck, he would say that.” 

JARVIS hums in agreement. God, Rhodey’s glad that they can talk like this. That they can talk like it doesn’t hurt anymore, when it still really,  _ really _ does. Tony’s gone, but… they’re healing. 

And, of course, that’s when JARVIS activates the proximity alarm. 

A second later, the sky splits and—

It’s like watching a falling star, Bolide  _ indeed _ , holy  _ shit _ , it’s like watching a second sun fall to earth and then—

It’s gone. 

“Where’d it land,” Rhodey snaps, already lifting off with Carol shooting in front of him to scout, getting JARVIS to bring up the output from the suit’s long-range scanners in his HUD.

“It’s in this valley, didn’t see it go over the mountains.” Carol tells him, shooting forwards to… wherever she saw it land, Rhodey guesses. 

Rhodey follows her — she’s got better eyes, capable of staring into a supernova without blinking — so currenety, with the suit’s scanners looking for a needle in a haystack and him still blinking away the flash-blindness, she’s their best bet of finding Bolide. 

“Got it.” Carol says, and— yep, there she goes, a quick course-adjustment to the east, further into the valley, and they fly for about ten seconds at near mach-1 before Carol gestures for Rhodey to stop. “Gotta make sure our friend’s not putting out enough radiation to fry you where you stand, Rhodes.”

Rhodey nods, even though he knows Carol can’t see him, and drops down to land on the desert floor, watching Carol fly on. He’s  _ pretty  _ sure that she could fly into a  _ star _ and be just fine, and, well… he’s not exactly eager to test just how well the suit could stand up to the same. He gets JARVIS to put the feed from her suitcam onto his HUD, and watches her approach

He can see Bolide now, standing in the middle of the desert. There’s still a brightness around it’s figure, but it’s dimmer now, and the admittedly limited sensors in Carol’s suit aren’t registering anything  _ that _ concerning. Low amounts beta particles, but that’s about it. Nothing that would be a problem in the suit.

Carol lands, about ten meters away from Bolide, and takes a couple steps forewards. Bolide doesn’t speak, but it does open what Rhodey presumes is it’s mouth, and—

“Thanos Is Coming.” It says, and it sounds like a choir speaking, many voices layered one on top of the other. “He Is Taking The Stones. Xandar Falls First.”

“Xandar is defended,” Carol responds, widening her stance just slightly. “Thanos’s fleet is good but it’s not  _ beat Xandar in combat _ good.”

Bolide doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink — not that Rhodey’s even sure that you could  _ see _ it blink — and just stares at Carol. 

Rhody feels the hair on the back of his neck raise up. 

“Xandar Falls First.” Bolide repeats. “Asgard. Sol-Earth-Home. Xandar Is Afraid Of Us. Asgard Has None Of Us. We Cannot Defend Them, Only You.” 

“What the fuck,” He hears Clint whisper over the comms, “This is truly some sci-fi bullshit, right here. Voice-of-the-legion and  _ everything _ .” 

There’s a muffled smacking noise, and Rhodey dearly hopes that Natasha just hit Clint upside the back of the head. 

This is  _ serious _ , even as something niggles at the back of Rhodey’s mind. “We’re plenty defended.” Carol tells it, “But if you wanted to help out, we wouldn’t mind at all. Just gotta answer some questions for me first, though. Who the  _ hell _ are you?” 

Something about Bolide’s proportions, about the voice underneath all the distortion. About the fact that it just called earth  _ home _ , in a tone that slipped to something unlike the rest of the words. Carol hasn’t given him the safe signal yet, though, so for now he stays back. 

“We Are The Stars.” Bolide says, and… dims, slightly. Shifts on its feet in the sand like it’s nervous. Or like… like it’s lying. “We Are One And We Are All.”

It shakes its head, dimming even  _ more _ , enough that Rhodey can see hair, a skin-tone, and—

He’s launching himself forwards even as he can see Carol twist to look back at him, alarm on her face, and the only thing in his mind right now is  _ Tony _ . 

The thing—  _ Tony _ , even though he’s not speaking like Tony, and he’s glowing like a star, and he’s been fucking  _ dead _ for four years, it’s Tony, Rhodey  _ saw —  _ straightens back out, like… like there’d been some sort of glitch that’s gone now, glowing bright enough that only the barest sugestion of a human shape can be seen. 

Rhodey saw though. He  _ saw _ , and that’s his fucking best friend underneath all that light, that’s  _ Tony— _

“Rhodes,” Carol says, arm out as he lands beside her, and Rhodey barely hears her, “What the  _ hell _ are you doing, get—”

Rhodey opens the suit, steps out into the sand, and stares. It hurts his eyes, but… 

A bright shape, two brighter eyes, — fuck, and how had he not  _ noticed _ — a bright circle in it’s chest. 

Right where the reactor should be. 

“Tony,” Rhodey says, croaks, voice rough and dry and this can’t be real, can it? He can’t be getting his friend back, not now, not after so, so much, not after  _ four years— _ “Tones, it’s  _ me—” _

Tony doesn’t respond, the thing that had Tony’s doesn’t respond, and Carol’s trying to drag him back because it’s getting brighter, and brighter, but that was  _ Tony,  _ dammit, It was  _ him— _

Bolide, Tony, whatever the fuck it is, collapses. Drops to the ground, onto its knees, still glowing brightly enough that it hurts to look at, and—

Then it’s not glowing at all, or if it is Rhodey’s eyes haven’t adjusted enough to see it, and it’s  _ Tony _ . Rhodey knows the shape of him, the curve of his shoulders and his back and the way his hair curls, he knows this man too well to  _ not _ recognize him, even curled over with his face hidden. He knows him, even when he’s been dead for years and has just fallen out of the sky glowing brighter than anything Rhodey’s ever seen. 

“What.” Tony says, and… and it’s  _ his voice _ , not the weird multi-layered thing it’d been before, even if it sounds choked, pained, and he looks up—

They’re not Tony’s eyes, they’re dark from corner to corner and filled with specks of light, full of  _ stars _ , but— the wrinkles around the corners are the same, the little creases on the bridge of his nose, the furrow of his brow as he stares at Rhodey with something that looks like confusion. 

Confusion, like he’s looking at a stranger, like he doesn’t know who Rhodey even  _ is _ , and then… 

His gaze snaps up somewhere over Rhodey’s shoulder as his eyes start glowing, lit up from the inside in a way that washes out the rest of his face. “What’s going on,” He says, and Rhodey can just  _ tell _ that he’s not talking to him, “What did you do, why—” He says, looks back at Rhodey as cracks start spiderwebbing across his skin, opening wider, and wider, bright chasms that seem to be swallowing Tony whole. “ _ Rhodey,”  _ He says, on a sob, and—

Rhodey’s yanked backwards just quick enough that he’s not blinded when Tony starts glowing like a supernova, lighting up the desert and the mountains and washing out the stars above, and Rhodey can’t stop  _ staring _ , heartbeat pounding in his ears, it’s Tony, it’s  _ Tony— _

_ “Rhodes, what the fuck,” _ Carol hisses at him, half-shielding him with her body, glancing quickly between where Rhodey’s laying on the ground, half-dazed and desperate, and at Tony. “You crazy—”

“We Did What We Had To.” Tony says, in that same voice from earlier, that voice that isn’t  _ his _ voice. “You Would Have Left Us.”

“You  _ took my fucking memories,” _ Tony snaps, as the light flickers and dies and then grows agian, a sputtering flame in the shape of Rhodey’s friend, “You  _ stole _ me, you didn’t— You didn’t give me a  _ choice _ , at  _ all—” _

“We Had No Choice.” The— Well, the  _ stars _ say, Rhodey guesses, props himself up and stares, struck silent at the sight of… the  _ stars _ speaking  _ through _ Tony. “Ours, We Cannot Fight. We Are Not Capable And We Were Dying.” 

“You made me into a monster!” Tony shouts, and he’s crying, Rhodey can tell even if he can’t see Tony’s face, he can tell from the sound of the voice, the way he stutters, slightly. “You took me from my home, you— you— you stole my family from me, you can’t—”

“We Can.” The stars say, and Tony lights back up and his posture drops from the tight, strained thing it had been as he stands, seeming to float slightly above the ground, and Rhodey thinks,  _ No, _ is halfway to his feet in order to run to Tony, to hold him down to earth with his bare fucking hands if he has to, when all the light from Tony’s form goes out at once and Tony crumples back down to the ground. 

“ _ You won’t,”  _ Tony says, fists clenched at his sides, and there’s tears streaming down his cheeks. “I won’t let you, I  _ won’t _ . I will do this thing,” He says, “I will help you fight, and I will help you stop Thanos, but I will do it as  _ me _ . Not as your  _ puppet _ .” He’s quiet for a second, breathing hard, and then— “I thought you loved me.” He says, and it’s damn near the most broken Rhodey’s ever heard him sound, “I thought I was Yours.”

This time, even though Tony starts glowing again — it starts in his closed fists and starts crawling upwards, but Tony clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut and it looks like it’s  _ hurting _ him — there’s no other voice coming from Tony’s mouth. 

“Tony,” Rhodey says, takes a step forward, another, feeling like his legs are gonna give out any second now. “Tones, please tell me that’s you. Please—”

“ _ It’s me _ ,” Tony says, looks up at Rhodey and his eyes are still just… voids, dark and empty, but the rest— it’s  _ him _ , and Rhodey sinks to his knees in the sand and grabs Tony like he’s going to turn to ash right in front of him, “Rhodey— It’s  _ you, it’s you, _ I  _ missed you _ , so  _ goddamn much —”  _

“Not as much as I’ve missed you, you  _ asshole—”  _ Rhodey’s saying, and he’s crying, both of them are, and he doesn’t  _ care _ and if this is a dream he thinks that if he ever wakes up he’s just going to start  _ screaming _ , and he pushes Tony back, holding him by the shoulders so tightly that it’ll probably bruise, cataloging every feature of Tony’s face, “Where the hell  _ were  _ you?”

Tony smiles at him, wobbly and they’re both still crying, grabs Rhodey’s shoulders, in turn. “Oh, you know.” He says, sniffs and  _ laughs, _ watery and deep in his chest, catching in his throat, “Space.” 

And now Rhodey’s laughing with him, and sobbing, sobbing like he hadn’t four years ago, like something in his chest has cracked open and  _ bloomed _ . 

Tony’s  _ back _ . He’s  _ alive _ .

Tony’s  _ alive. _

Everything else? That can come later. 


End file.
